January 30, 1997, Boston, Massachusetts: Federal policy that prohibits physicians from prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is "misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane," according to the new issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the country's most prestigious medical journal.Calling the administration's position "hypocritical," magazine editor Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer argued that: "Federal authorities should rescind their prohibition of the medicinal use of marijuana for seriously ill patients and allow physicians to decide which patients to treat. The government should change marijuana's status from that of a Schedule 1 drug (considered to be potentially addictive and with no current medical use) to that of a Schedule 2 drug (potentially addictive but with some accepted medical use) and regulate it accordingly."Kassirer's recommendation echoes the text of a proposed new federal bill by Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass). Frank, a longtime proponent of medical marijuana, has been working with NORML to craft a streamlined medical marijuana bill that will reschedule marijuana under federal law, thereby making it legal to prescribe. Once states are free of the federal law prohibiting the prescription of marijuana, they can legally implement different systems for growing and distributing medical marijuana to patients on a state-by-state basis. The passage of this legislation would also remove the threat of prosecution in the eight states that already allow doctors to prescribe marijuana. (See chart on page three for a breakdown of current state medical marijuana laws.)"Both historically and presently, states have been more receptive to the medical marijuana issue than the federal government," explained NORML's Executive Director, R. Keith Stroup, Esq., who noted that 25 states and the District of Columbia currently have laws recognizing marijuana's medical utility. (See chart.) "Therefore, NORML proposes a bill that
effectively gets the federal government out of the way of those states that wish to make marijuana legal as a medicine." Stroup said that he expects Rep. Frank to introduce the federal medical marijuana bill as soon as next
month and considered today's editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine to be a major blow to the administration's current position."A lead editorial in favor of allowing patients legal access to medical marijuana by the editor of one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world gives additional legitimacy to this issue, and conversely, further damages the credibility of the federal government's position," he said.A commentary written by Harvard Medical Professor and NORML
Board Member Lester Grinspoon in the June 21, 1995, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association(JAMA) stated; "It is time for physicians to acknowledge more openly that the present classification is scientifically, legally, and
morally wrong." A lead editorial published later that year in the highly respected British medical journal, The Lancet, added: "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.""Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey is out of his league when he attacks medical marijuana," said Bill Zimmerman, director of Americans for Medical Rights, one of the organizations that spearheaded the successful medical marijuana campaign in California. "He has ridiculed this issue as a 'Cheech and Chong show.' In truth, it is a matter of real concern to medical professionals. McCaffrey has made a bad policy worse, and is now facing the consequences in the form of a rebellion by the medical community.""Congress can no longer ignore the issue of medical marijuana," summarized Stroup. "The passage of state initiatives supporting its medical use in California and Arizona brought this issue to the political forefront. We expect the introduction of Rep. Barney Frank's legislation and the high-profile hearings that follow to keep it there."For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of NORML @ (202) 483-5500. NORML's report summarizing the various state medical marijuana laws is available
upon request.

January 30, 1997, Boston Massachusetts: The main active ingredient in marijuana (THC) did not cause cancer when fed to laboratory animals in huge doses over long periods, according to a federal study recently publicized by The Boston Globe. The $2 million dollar study had been left on the shelf for over two years."This study's findings undercuts the federal government's contention that marijuana itself is carcinogenic," said NORML's Deputy Director Allen St. Pierre. "It is ridiculous that such a report has failed to see the light of day until now.According to The Boston Globe, the 126-page draft study has never been published, though a panel of expert reviewers found in June 1994 that its scientific methods and conclusions were sound. "We found absolutely no evidence of cancer," John Butcher, director of the National Toxicology Program, told The Globe in reference to the study. Surprisingly, Butcher said that THC may even have protected against malignancies.In the study, high doses of THC were delivered directly into the stomachs of mice and rats daily for two years. Since the animals were not exposed to marijuana smoke, the study did not address the carcinogenic potential of inhaled marijuana.Butcher told The Boston Globe that his agency had not been pressured to bury the report, and said the delay was due to a personnel shortage.For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre of NORML
@ (202) 483-5500 or Attorney Steve Epstein of Mass/CANN NORML @ (617) 599-3161.

States that allow for the establishment of therapeutic cannabis
research programs:Alabama; Georgia; Illinois; Massachusetts; Minnesota; New Jersey; New
Mexico; New York; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Texas; Washington; West Virginia

"I was at a public meeting the other night with Terry Miller and watched as a bunch of randomly-formed citizen committees showed significant support for not building the new jails that were approved by the voters in May of 1996 here in Multnomah County. Several tables (committees), after a period of discussion about how to cut the city and county budgets to accommodate the recently-approved property tax "cut-and-cap" initiative, specifically mentioned not building the new jail. I noticed the sheriff (jail administrator), Dan Noelle, standing in the back of the room with looks of pain every time a committee made the recommendation that the jail not be built because the funds required for its operation were not available [i.e. why build a jail and let it stand empty???]. He was obviously perturbed at the end of the meeting when approximately one-third of the tables suggested major changes to his plan for a new jail and its operation under his command."

No decisions will be announced by city and county officials until about June.

However, as reported in "Jail site may end up standing empty" (The Oregonian, Jan. 23, 1997, p. C4), "...even though voters approved bond money for the jail, the county still must make a decision on whether to build it. That topic is scheduled to be discussed Feb. 25 in a meeting between the county Board of Commissioners and Sheriff Dan Noelle."

As critics noted before the May 21 jail-bond vote, even if the county builds the jails, it never had a realistic or adequate plan to fund their operating costs. Remember to write or fax your county commissioner about that before Feb. 25.

The advanced stages of many illnesses and their treatments are often accompanied by intractable nausea, vomiting, or pain. Thousands of patients with cancer, AIDS, and other diseases report they have obtained striking relief from these devastating symptoms by smoking marijuana.[1] The alleviation of distress can be so striking that some patients and their families have been willing to risk a jail term to obtain or grow the marijuana.

Despite the desperation of these patients, within weeks after voters in Arizona and California approved propositions allowing physicians in their states to prescribe marijuana for medical indications, federal officials, including the President, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and the attorney general sprang into action. At a news conference, Secretary Donna E. Shalala gave an organ recital of the parts of the body that she asserted could be harmed by marijuana and warned of the evils of its spreading use. Attorney General Janet Reno announced that physicians in any state who prescribed the drug could lose the privilege of writing prescriptions, be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, and even be prosecuted for a federal crime. General Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, reiterated his agency's position that marijuana is a dangerous drug and implied that voters in Arizona and California had been duped into voting for these propositions. He indicated that it is always possible to study the effects of any drug, including marijuana, but that the use of marijuana by seriously ill patients would require, at the least, scientifically valid research.

I believe that a federal policy that prohibits physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane. Marijuana may have long-term adverse effects and its use may presage serious addictions, but neither long-term side effects nor addiction is a relevant issue in such patients. It is also hypocritical to forbid physicians to prescribe marijuana while permitting them to use morphine and meperidine to relieve extreme dyspnea and pain. With both these drugs the difference between the dose that relieves symptoms and the dose that hastens death is very narrow; by contrast, there is no risk of death from smoking marijuana. To demand evidence of therapeutic efficacy is equally hypocritical. The noxious sensations that patients experience are extremely difficult to quantify in controlled experiments. What really counts for a therapy with this kind of safety margin is whether a seriously ill patient feels relief as a result of the intervention, not whether a controlled trial "proves" its efficacy.

Paradoxically, dronabinol, a drug that contains one of the active ingredients in marijuana (tetra-hydrocannabinol), has been available by prescription for more than a decade. But it is difficult to titrate the therapeutic dose of this drug, and it is not widely prescribed. By contrast, smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be therapeutic. Needless to say, new drugs such as those that inhibit the nausea associated with chemotherapy may well be more beneficial than smoking marijuana, but their comparative efficacy has never been studied.

Whatever their reasons, federal officials are out of step with the public. Dozens of states have passed laws that ease restrictions on the prescribing of marijuana by physicians, and polls consistently show that the public favors the use of marijuana for such purposes. [1] Federal authorities should rescind their prohibition of the medicinal use of marijuana for seriously ill patients and allow physicians to decide which patients to treat. The government should change marijuana's status from that of a Schedule 1 drug (considered to be potentially addictive and with no current medical use) to that of a Schedule 2 drug (potentially addictive but with some accepted medical use) and regulate it accordingly. To ensure its proper distribution and use, the government could declare itself the only agency sanctioned to provide the marijuana. I believe that such a change in policy would have no adverse effects. The argument that it would be a signal to the young that "marijuana is OK" is, I believe, specious.

This proposal is not new. In 1986, after years of legal wrangling, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) held extensive hearings on the transfer of marijuana to Schedule 2. In 1988, the DEA's own administrative-law judge concluded, "It would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record." [1] Nonetheless, the DEA overruled the judge's order to transfer marijuana to Schedule 2, and in 1992 it issued a final rejection of all requests for reclassification. [2] Some physicians will have the courage to challenge the continued proscription of marijuana for the sick. Eventually, their actions will force the courts to adjudicate between the rights of those at death's door and the absolute power of bureaucrats whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness than on compassion.

SAN FRANCISCO - Doctors from the Bay Area to Boston on Wednesday blasted the federal government's call for more study of marijuana's medical impact as a waste of time, saying adequate proof already exists of the drug's benefit.

While San Francisco doctors held a news conference citing studies as far back as 1976, the editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine roasted federal officials for blocking desperately ill patients' access to marijuana for medical treatment.

"Thousands of patients with cancer, AIDS and other diseases report they have obtained striking relief from these devastating symptoms by smoking marijuana," wrote Dr. Jerome Kassirer editor of the Boston journal, in an editorial in today's issue. "I believe that a federal policy that prohibits physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is misguided, heavyhanded and inhumane."

Plenty of evidence.

Kassirer said there is abundant evidence that marijuana is far safer and less addicting than many other narcotics commonly prescribed by doctors. "It is hypocritical to forbid physicians to prescribe marijuana while permitting them to use morphine and (Demerol) to relieve extreme (nausea) and pain," Kassirer wrote.

The issue erupted after Californians voted in November to legalize marijuana for medical use. I Federal officials warned afterward that such use was still forbidden by federal law and told doctors they could lose their licenses to prescribe drugs or suffer financial penalties if they recommend marijuana to their patients.

Offering an olive branch this month, the White House drug policy director announced $1 million funding for the Institute of Medicine to review studies already done on the medical use of inhaled marijuana. But doctors meeting Wednesday at the San Francisco Medical Society said such a review was redundant and would stall any resolution of the controversy that has erupted.

Doctor speaks up

"The federal government's announced intent to undertake a million-dollar, 18-month review of existing knowledge is unnecessarily duplicative and untimely," said Dr. Dexter Louie, president of the San Francisco Medical Society, which had endorsed medical use of marijuana before the November vote. "Many respected medical experts already feel that enough is known to reclassify marijuana to allow physicians to prescribe it."

One critic of the drug policy contended at Wednesday's news conference that dozens of studies have been done over the last two decades that show evidence of marijuana's medical effectiveness. Kevin Zeese, president of a Virginia-based organization called Common Sense for Drug Policy, cited several:

A 1979 study published in a well-known medical journal, The Annals of Internal Medicine, that found marijuana reduced vomiting and nausea in cancer patients by 72 percent.

A 1988 study published in the New York State Journal of Medicine that reported a 78 percent improvement among cancer patients who inhaled marijuana after failing to be helped by alternatives such as Marinol, a pill containing a synthetic version of the active ingredient of marijuana.

A 1975 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on marijuana's active ingredient, called THC, that found some patients reported "natural" marijuana helped them more than the synthetic, legal version.

Avoid abuse

The San Francisco doctors said they welcomed more research on marijuana's medical impact and acknowledged its prescription should be regulated to prevent its abuse.

"It is not a drug without harmful effects," said Dr. Laurens White, a cancer specialist and former president of the California Medical Society. "Teenagers get into trouble smoking it and do badly at school."

But if appropriate controls are placed on its prescription, he said, "I don't think . . . it would destroy the moral fiber of America."

Kassirer predicted the argument will be settled ultimately by legal challenges.

"Some physicians will have the courage to challenge the continued proscription of marijuana for the sick," he wrote. "Eventually, their actions will force the courts to adjudicate between the rights of those at death's door and the absolute power of bureaucrats whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness than on compassion."

U.S. News and World Report will come out Monday with an article that really shows how well we have done to make industrial hemp a legitimate article of commerce. There is not a more staid conservative magazine published, but their Business and Technology Section features a totally positive article on our achievements. The article is accompanied by two illustrations, one a makeup of clothing from the Ohio Hempery and the other that explains all of the uses of hemp.

"Hemp Is High Fashion -
(No Cheech, not that kind.) Hemp products are booming."

U.S. News and World Report, Jan. 20, 1997, page 55
Business and Technology

Weed Makes a Comeback.

All of the above clothing was made from Industrial Hemp. Its still illegal to grow, but that could change.

You can't get high smoking jeans made from it. The oil tastes pretty good on salads, but don't expect to get a buzz. You can make brownies with it, but after eating a few, reggae music still sounds about the same.

No, this hemp is different. It's called industrial hemp, and though it looks a lot like its leafy cousin, Cannabis sativa, or marijuana, it lacks the same hallucinatory properties. Just as corn comes in different varieties - sweet, short ear or animal feed - so too does hemp, which grows with various amounts of THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.

Industrial hemp is a tall, lanky, low-THC variety of marijuana, prized more for its fibrous stalk and its oil-rich seeds than its smokability.

Hemp chic.

Cultivating industrial hemp in the United States has been illegal for more than a quarter century because of fears that pot growers would raise their crops alongside hemp, making the illegal weed harder to spot. Imports of finished hemp products, however, are still allowed - and demand is soaring. Fashion designers like Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani are adding hemp clothing and bed linens to their lines. Adidas sold 30,000 pairs of athletic shoes made partly from hemp last year. Hemp retail stores are sprouting up all across the country, hawking everything from hemp shampoos and soaps to jeans and salad oil. Some estimates put worldwide trade in hemp products as $100 million last year, a figure that experts say could double or even triple in the next few years.

All in all, it is quite a comeback for this fibrous plant with a history. Hemp had been an agricultural staple in America for hundreds of years, providing rope for sailing ships, canvas for covered wagons and lamp oil for colonial farms, But it became a victim of technological advances in the 19th century: The cotton gin made cotton fabric cheaper; the slave labor needed to process hemp disappeared, and fossil fuels replaced hemp oil for light and heat. The coup de grace came this century, when hemp all but disappeared from world markets as most industrialized countries sought to stamp out drug abuse.

It's easy to understand the renewed interest in hemp today. The plant is one of nature's finest renewable fiber sources, producing four times as much pulp per acre as trees. As demand for fiberboard, packing material and paper products increases, hemp may be an alternative to buying up expensive forest land and clear-cutting trees for wood pulp. Curtis Koster, International Paper Co.'s technology business manager, notes that as a source of fiber, hemp is the stronger and easiest to grow, with the broadest geographical range.

It also is environmentally correct. As hemp activists point out, it can be grown without the pesticides and irrigation needed to raise a cotton crop. For that reason , hemp clothing has become a status symbol for the ecofriendly, even though some of the material feels like burlap and call to mind peasant wear on a Communist Chinese collective. Hemp clothing is no bargain either: A shirt might set you back $60, a pair of jeans $80.

The high cost stems from a shortage of hemp fabric on the world market. About a dozen countries, including China, Russia and several Eastern European nations, grow hemp legally. But hemp clothing makers often have to go to great lengths to line up suppliers. Chris Boucher, president of Hempstead Co., a California import and manufacturing firm that sold $1.5 million worth of hemp products last year, says he must deposit money in the Bank of China, which holds the cash for 60 days before he receives a delivery. "The textile business people laugh at us because so one in his right mind would pay up front and in cash for jeans material," he says.

Few doubt that legalizing hemp cultivation in the United States makes good commercial sense. But the politics are tricky. This year, as many as 10 states may introduce bills to legalize growing hemp with less than 3 percent THC content. But few expect any to pass. Besides, with marijuana use increasing among teenagers, states that passed a legal-hemp initiative would likely face the wrath of federal authorities. (The Clinton administration says it will prosecute Arizona and California doctors who prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes, even though voters in those states approved initiatives making it legal for them to do so.)

But hemp activists may have a trump card. Leaders of the Navajo Nation are considering cultivating as many as 40,000 acres of hemp this spring as part of an economic-development project that will employ 70 people in a particleboard mill near the aptly named Arizona city of Sawmill.

Open Door?

Although growing plants containing THC is illegal under current Navajo law, the tribal council might amend the law to make cultivating plants with less than 3 percent THC legal. The Navajos also are considering using hemp fiber to make rugs and pressing hemp seeds for oil. Proponents believe that the tribe's sovereign status could make it immune from current U.S. drug laws. "We are only interested in the commercial and industrial applications," says Jim Robinson, director of the Navajo Hemp Project.

If the hemp project is allowed to go ahead, federal Drug Enforcement Administration officials worry, hemp-activist farmers in Kentucky, Iowa and Colorado will quickly increase their demands to grow hemp, too. That could open the door for marijuana cultivation throughout the country, the DEA fears. Officially, however, the agency is adopting a wait-and-see attitude. But clearly it would prefer that the Navajos just say no.